SAP Basis

ADM100 Lesson: Appendix - Advanced User Administration Topics
Directory services allow various applications in an IT landscape to access
shared information at a central location. The information is stored on a
central directory server that the various systems of your IT landscape can
access. In this way, the directory server acts as an “IT address book” for
information that is usually used in common, such as personnel data (name,
department, organization), user data, and information about system
resources and system services. You can use directory services to maintain
information in SAP systems for directory-compatible applications (such as
user administration or Business Workplace). The standardized Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is usually used as the access protocol.
Directory services provide a central information and administration
point and therefore simple shared information usage between various
applications. Your SAP system can exchange data with directory services
using the LDAP protocol. You specify the synchronization direction for
each field, that is, whether the SAP system overwrites the data in the
directory, or the directory overwrites the data in the SAP system.
The SAP system can exchange data with directory services from various
vendors. The SAP system may require attributes that are not in the
standard schemata of the directories. SAP usually provides a schema
extension for this purpose.
Note: As of SAP Web AS 6.10, SAP systems can easily connect to a
directory service. It was possible to connect to a directory service
before SAP Web AS 6.10, although rather more effort was involved.
Hint: A connection to a directory service can extend a Central User
Administration. That is, these two concepts are in no way mutually
exclusive, but rather work together very well.
The topic of central directory services/LDAP is dealt with in detail in SAP
course ADM102 - SAP Web AS Administration II.
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